URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Fall_2020_Melissa-McCarthy

RHODE TO HEALTH written by ARIA MIA LOBERTI ’20 Multiple soundproof examination rooms, patient intake and screening areas, a restroom, a medical refrigerator, a space to perform blood work — these features seem typical of a state- of-the-art physician’s practice, clinic, or hospital wing. However, these attributes also characterize the University of Rhode Island’s (URI) Mobile Health Unit (MHU). The 37-foot long, $400,000 vehicle, funded by the state through the Ryan White Foundation, originally hit the road in 2018 as a means to screen at-risk Rhode Islanders for HIV and to provide services for individuals affected by the opioid epidemic. Fueled by partnerships between the University and state partners to service the community, this clinic-on-wheels is an example of a successful, technologically advanced mobile health care unit in the country. Kinesiology Professor Bryan Blissmer, worked with Rhode Island’s Executive Office of Health and Human Service’s HIV Provision of Care and Special Populations Director Paul Loberti, and a team of health care experts to develop and design the MHU. “It began as a Ryan White grant to help vulnerable populations and morphed into so much more,” said Loberti, a behavioral scientist and principal investigator of the Rhode Island Ryan White Program. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Loberti, Blissmer, and their team worked together to equip the mobile health unit to respond to the crisis. “In our discussions with state officials, we focused on how to staff the unit safely to respond to high-risk populations,” said Blissmer, who also is the director of the URI Institute for

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